Taken From the Prison Library

Taken From the Prison Library 

Wish for them the cigarette smiled girls
of 1948. Lipstick curled, etched stockings 
and a try if you dare sweetheart wink. 

Mainline good whiskey and Count Basie’s riots. 
Percuss them with Ann Miller’s tapped routines.
Frame by sprocketed scratched frame. 

But it’ll rain through Christmas to New Year.
A ripped pool table baize lifting like a scab. 
The singed pages darting from the nets above.